Oh, those poor Vancouver Canucks. Since the dawn of the 1970's, the west coast whale has on more than one occasion been on the brink of glory, only to fall off the cliff into the pits of stinky despair. Indeed, over the years, the Nucks have boasted rosters with high degrees of skill, speed, hockey IQ, and twins, squandering these gifts as each window of success slowly drew close, drawing to mind comparisons to any number of applicable scenes from the Indiana Jones movies.

Indeed, a litany of talent has passed through Vancouver with an alarming frequency on par with the number of times the team unveils progressively uglier jerseys, and despite all of this,Vancouver always ends up on the outside looking in. It would be easy to sympathize with them, as surely any halfway compassionate human being can want to see any entity that continually has sand kicked in their face taste even a glimmer of success, and the Canucks are most certainly that.

WELL F#%* THAT AUDIO, PAVEL BURE. The Canucks and their fanbase are probably the league's most entitled organization, and have never conducted themselves in a manner that affords them even a shred of decency when being referred to by literally almost anyone else. Instead, all that we're going to offer here today is two minutes of unbridled disdain and crass name calling, and I don't feel the least bit guilty or ashamed to do it. (Though admittedly, I will have to tread carefully, as Canucks and their fans tend to dive into violent backlash when provoked, seemingly without warning.)

C'MON REF

The Man is out to get the Vancouver Canucks. At least, you know, according to them. Leave it to the league's most demonstrably classless fraternity to lose a playoff series by being outplayed, outscored, outpossesed, outBrent Burns bearded, acknowledge this, and still blame the refs.

Historically, this has been a thorn in Vancouver's side. A squad who over the years has boasted a catalogue of noted agents of shitheadery like Williams, Odjick, Murzyn, Bertuzzi, May, Ruutu. Cooke, Kesler, Burrows, Bieksa, Torres, and Lapierre (to name a few) has casually asserted that maybe they are subject to biased officiating.

There are arguments that this is an astute observation by the Canucks collective. When the whole world watches Alex Burrows slake his thirst for human blood by nibbling on Patrice Bergeron's finger (an incident in which Burrows went completely undisciplined, for what it's worth), everyone was quick to assume the worst: that Alex Burrows is a dirty player, one that will do anything to get under the opposition's skin. No one even once considered the possibility that he might be a vampire. Seeing as there has been incidents of this in the past, it's pretty irresponsible of everyone to ignore this notion.

When Todd Bertuzzi, irate that no one was trying to help Steve Moore get a spider off the back of his helmet, forcefully took matters into his own hands and inadvertently knocking Moore unconscious and out of hockey forever (whoops!), no one commended him for lending a hand. Instead, Bertuzzi, who was only trying to do the right thing, was unabashedly villified by society and SUSPENDED by the league for what amounted to approximately 20-30 games. Where is the justice in this, I ask?

There is a case to make here. Observe the following:

And not one of these plays resulted in a penalty against the opposing team.

To get back to a hatred of a more serious tone, the Canucks conventionally have always been a team to cry foul. It's in no way insufferable, and I really like it when it happens. Roger Nielson's legacy might be that of an innovator who revolutionized reviewing game video as a coaching tool, but his most defining moment may be when he famously raised a white towel in the playoffs, alluding that he was surrendering to what he thought was tedentious officiating.

This simple act of mewling begat what is now playoff tradition of towel waving in Vancouver, which says a lot about their fanbase. Not only are they all noted quitters, but they demonstrate how clearly they believe the refs are out to get their beloved dirty hockey team, and are even SO PROUD OF THIS that Nielson is forever immortalized outside Rogers Arena with a statue of him mid-twirl.

Way to establish credibility, gents.

Spandex And The Worst Thing To Ever Happen To Pro Sports

Canucks fans are generally the worst, everyone knows this. They go out of their way to establish it at every turn. But atrocious fansmanship is a pandemic that has spread across sports as a totality, so why even mention it? Well, the Canucks took something awful, and mutated it into what I consider to be a plague on the world and needs to be exterminated, either through force, or by any other means necessary.

Of course, you already know I'm referring to the Green Men. This is skullduggery at it's most extreme, and it's so insincere it makes me wretch.

At it's core, the Green Men are are two idiots trying to redefine what it is to be a sports fan. Their definition of the term seems to include a clause allowing vigilante fanaticism, and encourages bystanders to get involved in the game to degrees that alter the outcome of a game AND diminish the integrity of the game and the people who support it.

The arrogance to assert that they make a difference in ways that do not border on dangerous (whuddup, dude who fell into the penalty box with Tie Domi in Philadelphia?) is about as offensive as their refusal to acknowledge that they ripped off Charlie Day and the Green Man from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. It's plenty possible to be an impassioned sports fan and not rely on cheap ploys; to not become a distraction. An embarrassment. That's what these two sock stuffing community college comedy troupe rejects are trying to change. It's dangerous, it's disingenuous, and it's not even terribly clever.

In short, it's incredibly Vancouver.

Civic Disobedience

Speaking of fans doing terrible things, hey, what's with the rioting, City of Vancouver?

There are several reasons why riots occur. Generally, it comes from reactions to unpopular public discourse, a fight for better living or working conditions, conflicts between religious sectors, or just due to factors of generic civic unrest.

Punching people in public and setting things on fire with other things that have already been set on fire because of your favourite hockey team is asinine. I realize this sort of thing happens all the time in international soccer (and Montreal, usually just because), but we're not here to hate them today, so let's not let that sway our opinion.

The fact that everyone came out the following day, and in the face of contrary evidence from the Vancouver Police Department, brashly declared that the riots were not the actions of Vancouver Canucks fans rang about as sincere as the Green Men coming out and saying the refs have an agenda against Alex Burrows. We've already established the character of Canucks fans and their masked union reps, so their inability to accept accountability for the wanton destruction of their own beloved home comes as no surprise, but it is about as appalling as a Max Lapierre "hockey play".

But why, BoL, why would Vancouver Canucks supporters do this to their own town? Surely we're dealing with a secret society of thugs who have their pulse on heightened emotions of a community and prey on it to create mayhem. This is an isolated incident, after all, and it's not like this happens everytime the Canucks choke at their most chokiest?

whoops.

Let The Hate Flow Through You

Is it fair to harp on the Canucks at a time when their team and their fanbase are grieving a second consecutive embarrassingly thorough early playoff defeat? They are at their lowest, their most sensitive, and it seems in poor taste to pile on top of that, as if they're oh, let's say, Steve Moore.

Uh...no.

You have two quality starting goaltenders who have accomplished nothing more than Dan Cloutier aside from being better at Twitter.

You have noted mouthbreather Vern Fiddler present a perfect and apt rendition of Kevin Bieksa as a caveman that was so convincing even Canucks coach Alain Vigneault couldn't help but be swayed.

Ryan Kesler's lasting legacy will be that of a naked douchebag and not of a hockey player.

Pavel Bure had stupid hair.

The Canucks mascot, Fin the Whale, is a fat orca and inspired by former Canuck Kyle Wellwood.

No one likes you. You're all Millhouse. You're Milton Waddams. Stale fruitcake. Black licorice. One Direction. Nic Cage. you are the worst. You will never amount to anything, and it warms all of our hearts here at FlamesNation to see you continually come to to the precipice of success, only to have it so cruelly wrested from you as you fall into our Two Minutes Hate.

Thank you.

StreakCred

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That was both epic and beautiful. I was one of those fools wearing a Boston jersey (as lame as that is) downtown Van during the game and after. I wandered home when the tear gas broke out, and wasn't stabbed, or beaten to a pulp, like two other unfortunate Bruin-Jersey-wearing dudes. Good old Vancouver. May your cup drought continue forever.

I have a friend that's a Vancouver Canucks fan, and he is a perfectly fine human being except when he is talking about the Canucks. It's like they have the power to transform people into obnoxious douchebags just by cheering for them.

As much as people want to praise Mike Gillis, he is a useless piece of crap, example:

http://www.nhl.com/ice/boxscore.htm?id=2007020940

That is the roster for the trade deadline of the year he took the team over, outside of David Booth, pretty well all he has done since then is change out the bottom of the roster and move around replaceable players. He has not in any way significantly improved that roster. The guy who is getting the most out of the line up he's been giving and turned the Sedins into the best offensive threats in the league is AV, and he's gonna lose his job to save Gillis.

The Canucks are 1-9 in their last 10 playoff games. I bet Gillis sure wished he had Cody Hodgson and not Zack Kassian. The Canucks couldn't score to save their life until game 4 and still loss. The Sedins continue to be ultra soft, the window has closed on this team.

AV is a dictator, he lets Robert Luongo stay in games where he is getting lit up and forced a Sedin to play a 22 second shift in game 48 just to keep a streak intact. The Nucks need a rebuild, winning NW division titles means diddly squat in the playoffs. Having home ice didn't help this squad. Cory Scheider is overrated, they would get better value trading him than Luongo and his massive contract.

WOW, is this what we've come to? Disparaging a team that has actually got past the first round on multiple occassions over the last twenty years to vindicate our own dignity and class as Flames fans? Man, talk about wallowing in self-glorification.

I'm a die-hard Flames fan, but I also live in the greater Vancouver area. As a wealthier member of this beatiful city, I am personally indebted to the economic opportunites it has afforded to me, so it will obviously frame my opinion of the city and its fans (it's one of the reasons I can respond to a blog in the middle of the day).

I personally don't care about the Nucks, so I will leave the hockey stuff aside.

But to disparage the fanbase for what happened in the recent riots is irresponsible and misleading. Vancouver has always been deeply stratified according to class divisions. The failure of the Canucks presented an opportunity to those less priveledged -a plethora of whom coincedentally reside a stone's throw away around Hstings and East Vancouver -and a small coterie of pseudo-anarchists to engage in activites of looting and random destruction in order to not only avail themselves of the situation, but to make an affirmation against what they believe to be social inequities.

This large disaffected group initiated the night's proceedings, consequently igniting the drunken passions of some frustrated (and did I mention drunk) fans, who, instead of looting or attacking property, for the most part violently just turned on one another and engaged in wanton destruction irrespective of any financial gain.

The fact that the city has always tried to cast a shroud over the plight of the lower classes -those stuck in a life of poverty, crime and drug addiction -only exacerbated matters as the mass of humanity that congregated in the city center essentialy became a powder keg and the aforementioned the flame.

I was actually there that night and can tell you the men and women who attacked the Bank were organized: they puled out ski-masks, and a couple of them began to concot molotov cocktails. They also had crowbars and other tools at their disposal. In other words, these were not Canucks fans who showed up to watch and celebrate their team. But some of the latter would begin to join the proceedings, especially young teenagers - a development that will not be surprising to those that are knowledgeable of mob dynamics and how they operate in modern socities.

So, I appreciate they humor, but as a citizen of the city, I do take a mild offence to how you glossed over the very real and serious social tensions that evinced themselves in the riot to make it into a heinous crime of a stupid and frustrated fan base.

For your info, hundreds if not thousands of those very same pretentios and insufferable Canucks fans turned up in the following days to volunteer their time and money to help clean up the aftermath. As a Canadian, I was filled with pride to see these men, women, and children devote their time to help the city recover -all the while wearing Canucks jerseys.

In sum, make fun of the on-ice product, but don't vilify an entire community when you obviously are oblivous to the underlying dynamics that triggered the whole unfortunate event.

People tend to forget that sports teams are societal institutions that are central to individuals' identities. The aggrieved and others who resided a couple of blocks from the sqaure where Canucks fans were gathered were not oblivious to this and decided to avail themselves of the situation to make their own statement.

I'm going to throw out there that I really don't enjoy two minutes of hate. They can be cleverly written, as this one was, but they come across to me as being bitter and loudmouthed. My dislike shouldn't stop others from reading and enjoying, just putting in my two bits.

And blaming poor people for starting the riots (I have no idea how you can prove this), which is what you did, hmm, well, gee, umm... Not good.

Yeah, that's what I was doing: blaming the poor. They are the seed of all evil, of course.

BTW: If you want to look at some of the factors leading to the riots, the Vancouver Sun did a very nice series of articles. Check them out for starters, and then you can partake in the RCMP police reports, as well, if you want a more knowledgeable opinion of what happened. I guess it is evidence of some sorts.

What a buzzkill. I'm also a Flames fan living downtown Vancouver, and am completely comfortable seeing Canuck fans get lambasted for not only the riots, but the extravagant poetry written on boarded windows which followed the next day. Societal implications may be an unreasonable criticism when it comes to articles that accuse sports celebrities of vampirism.

Scha·den·freu·de: (pronounced shod-n-froi-duh). From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: "Enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others." From Dictionary.com: "A malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others." (copied and pasted without permission from the ON site)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's actually exactly what you were doing.

as evidenced here:

"The failure of the Canucks presented an opportunity to those less priveledged... to engage in activites of looting and random destruction in order to not only avail themselves of the situation, but to make an affirmation against what they believe to be social inequities."

Saying that it wasn't 'real' fans that rioted is insane... And blaming "the poor" is also insane (and offensive). Two of the first charges were the water polo trust fund baby, and Camille Cacnio, a UBC student. There were several UBC students charged. I was down there as well and there were piles of Nucks jerseys burning in bondfires. Tons of them. Those suckers cost a premium.

Anyway the 'entitled' charge is perfectly fitting the Nucks fans I know. How long did it take the Canucks to sell out their stadium for these last two playoff games anyway..? Took a little while... even Ron Maclean was having fun with that bit of news.

Yeah, that's what I was doing: blaming the poor. They are the seed of all evil, of course.

BTW: If you want to look at some of the factors leading to the riots, the Vancouver Sun did a very nice series of articles. Check them out for starters, and then you can partake in the RCMP police reports, as well, if you want a more knowledgeable opinion of what happened. I guess it is evidence of some sorts.

I agree. Mocking the skullduggery that was the Stanley Cup riots is entirely reasonable outside of context. I too have lived in BC for an extended period, and while I agree that the fans themselves are generally the worst (at least in terms of assuming they're the centre of the sporting world), there is (for some odd reason) a history of rioting in Vancouver.

As, Olli pointed out there are several reasons for this 'history', and the largest contributor is social stratification.

Check out a book called "Reading the Riot Act" by Michael Barnholden (I believe).

I'm sorry. I too am a Flames' fan living in Vancouver and with all due respect you are looking at Vancity with rose tinted glasses. I have been to many Canuck games here with my Iginla jersey on and I cannot tell you how bad both the racial and anti-Calgary verbal abuse I have had to take over the years (yes. I am not Caucasian). In 2004, I had the privilege of seeing my Flames win Game 2 of the Western Conference quarter finals and then the disgust of seeing an 8 year old Flames fan driven to tear in the concourse from the abuse of these so-called 'fans'. We have had popocorn, beer, and pop thrown at us for nothing more than wearing the 'wrong' jersey. I don't 'whoop' it up when the Flames score here - I just mind my own business and smile. I have also seen the Canucks mascot 'Fin' pregame - go up to a young Flames' fan, grab the kid's Flames' ball cap and throw it on the ice, and then tries to rip off his mom's Flames' jersey. Give me a break. I don't know what part of Vancouver you live in, but it is not the utopia that you mention. I will no longer attend Flames' games in Vancouver as I don't need the aggravation nor the internalized hatred that their fan base carries. Sad. But true.

Holy crap, I'm not drunk anymore and I can't believe I wrote that. I don't know why I start writing liking I'm preparing a University essay when I am drunk, but I didn't mean to offend anyone.

But, by lower classes, I do not mean "the poor". Just a bad choice of words. The former term encompasses far more than just pay grade in modern socities. But, I was just quickly wiritng off the top of my head while I was buzzing. There is a deeper social context to what happened in Vancouver that cannot be simply explained by stupid Canucks fans, but I didn't mean to absolve a lot of partygoers who hailed from middle-to-upper class families for what they perpetrated.

Just wanted to say there was much more to the riot, and apparently certain portions of BOL's essay pissed me off into a rant.

Sorry, buddy!!!! Still live you in a hetero way, man!!
Anyways, gotta fly out of country. Hope to keep up with the great discourse here while abroad (and while I am not drunk!!)

It was interesting to see the riot footage from 1994 and how bad that was. I had forgotten about those. Seems kind of sad that it happened again just a couple years ago. What a bunch of boobs. Just think, it was a whole new generation of youth gone wild. I doubt it was the same troublemakers. I have to agree with House.

There are always going to be losers in every city who will take any excuse to go steal from those that have worked hard and earned what they have. It was the same thing at the olympics with all the hippies(just generalizing) that didn't want the money spent on the olympics but on drug addicts and all that. My answer to that was do you really think they will spend the money on your drug addicts if there are no olympics? Plus the improvements to the city infrastructure and boost in tourism that will likely last for another good 10 years just off those olympics will benefit the city as a whole far more than any little program would have.

Anyway people who do this feel that everyone owes them a living and that they are justified in taking from others. I have a friend like this, he just hasn't gone so far as to vandalize or steal. It's not necessarily the "poor" so much as those who are unwilling to work to earn a dollar. K I'm done ranting haha...damn hippies...

Excellent article, couldn't have said it better myself. I would love to see Todd's reaction, the whining about the reffing is so true. I see it everywhere I used to post on some hockey forums and the Canucks fans always had something to say about the refs.

Canucks whining about embellishing when they have Kesler and Burrows...... My favorite out of all of those dives was the Kesler one against Richards in game 1 of the playoffs last year. Vintage Ryan Kesler!

An excellent article & I do hope the Canucks win the Stanley Cup someday in the distant future, but not until every player & staffer who was with the team in 2011 is no longer with them. If the team was lead by players with character, I could cheer for them if they were the last team from Canada in the playoffs. Until Until then however, I'll root for the teams they play against in the playoffs whether it be the Flames, Blackhawks, Bruins, Kings, Sharks or anyone else even including the Oilers.

First, the Green Men did admit that they ripped off Always Sunny in Philly, in fact if you look at their reddit they did mention that it was the main inspiration.

Second, the Canucks have employed all sorts of scumbags. So have most NHL teams. The Canucks have employed more than their fair share, and no one is going to dispute that - but I don't know of any NHL fanbases that can truly claim the moral high ground.

Officiating - true that it is biased against the Canucks - in large part to our team's actions on the ice over the past two years. The idea that Canucks are shameless divers is really overstated. Pretty much every team in the past 5 years has had some divers on them. It could be argued that the LA Kings and Boston Bruins were worse. In fact, it is regularly argued and it isn't really disputed - not to mention the Canucks have really slowed down on the embellishment.

Finally, a lot of Canucks fans are serious d-bags. But, guess what, Flames fans? I've had to deal with plenty of Flames fans who were pretty terrible too.

In the end it all boils down to the fact that the Canucks have never won a cup, and have been so close two times. Canucks fans love their team so much, and have never been rewarded for the support they give. Imagine, in 1989 if the Flames hadn't won it and Calgary had never won the cup? Flames fans would be even more annoying than they are today.

All in all, I really wish that the Flames weren't terrible because I want the Flames-Canucks to be a real rivalry again. It won't be happening for a while but it would be nice.

That whole I wish Calgary was better for the rivalry is such a condescending overused phrase by Canuck fans. "I wish you were good but your bad, and your going to be bad for a long time." it really just comes off as fake and backhanded. Of course you want a bitter rival to be bad! That's the whole enjoyment of having a bitter rival. I for one love seeing the oilers suck, and I love that the Canucks suck now too. I'm not going to even pretend I want either of those teams to be good "for the sake of the rivalry"

Calgary has been holding the cup over everyones head for 25 years. Yet you can't even make the playoffs. C'mon man I could understand gloating if you had a decent team,but you don't. The Flames suck and will continue to for many years to come. No wonder Iggy left.

Excellent stuff, Neil Watkins from accounting (Seinfeld reference), but I'm not sure at any point this was an "our team is better than your team because we won a Cup in 1989" debate. Just a friendly reminder of the smarmy, fairly intolerable mess the Canucks and a bulk of its vocal fans, have become.

There are always going to be losers in every city who will take any excuse to go steal from those that have worked hard and earned what they have. It was the same thing at the olympics with all the hippies(just generalizing) that didn't want the money spent on the olympics but on drug addicts and all that. My answer to that was do you really think they will spend the money on your drug addicts if there are no olympics? Plus the improvements to the city infrastructure and boost in tourism that will likely last for another good 10 years just off those olympics will benefit the city as a whole far more than any little program would have.

Anyway people who do this feel that everyone owes them a living and that they are justified in taking from others. I have a friend like this, he just hasn't gone so far as to vandalize or steal. It's not necessarily the "poor" so much as those who are unwilling to work to earn a dollar. K I'm done ranting haha...damn hippies...

I deny the entire premiss.

Flames fans didn't riot after being jobbed in game 6 in 2004. Nor did they riot after loosing again in game 7. I do however agree that there will always be loosers in SOME cities waiting to "take any excuse to go steal from those that have worked hard and earned what they have." I would even agree that there will always be loosers in THAT city waiting to "take any excuse to go steal from those that have worked hard and earned what they have," but not any city guy.